The present invention relates to a thermosensitive image transfer recording material for multicolor or full color reproduction.
Conventionally, there is known a thermosensitive image transfer recording material as partially shown in FIG. 1, which comprises a ribbon-shaped substrate 1, a plurality of thermosensitive image transfer layer sections 3, for instance, of yellow, magenta, and cyan, optionally black colors, which are arranged side by side on the substrate 1 in the longitudinal direction thereof, with a sufficient space 1a between the thermosensitive image transfer layer sections 3 for allowing a relatively narrow marker layer section 2 extending in the direction of the entire width of the substrate 1 to be disposed therein, by which the color of each image transfer layer section 3 adjacent to the marker layer section 2 can be automatically optically detected, for instance, through the shape or width of the marker layer section 2. In this conventional thermosensitive image transfer recording material, comparatively large spaces 1a are left between the marker layer sections 2 and the image transfer layer sections 3 adjacent thereto, and therefore the surface of the substrate 1 in those spaces is not covered at all, but bare, so that the conventional thermosensitive image transfer recording material has the following shortcomings:
(1) Thermosensitive image transfer layer sections and the marker layer sections are partially or totally peeled off the substrate near or at the end portions thereof, so that improper image transfer and improper color detection take place. This is probably because when the ribbon-shaped thermosensitive image transfer recording is rolled, the substrate is stressed in a different direction from the direction of the stress laid on the thermosensitive image transfer layer sections and the marker layer sections formed on the substrate, so that the thermosensitive image transfer layer sections and the marker layer sections are apt to be peeled off the substrate from the ends of each layer section, at which the fixity of those layer sections is weak. PA1 (2) The thermosensitive image transfer layer sections and the exposed portions of the substrate between the image transfer layer sections and the marker layer sections have different coefficients of friction. Therefore, when the recording material is transported, for example, by a transportation roller during recording, the roller may slip on the recording material due to the different coefficients of friction. The result is that the marker layer sections cannot be correctly detected and accordingly the positional control of the recording material cannot be correctly performed.